Behind the story: Last post is sounding

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Delivering letters is a dying business in Europe. TNT’s decision to break
itself up is confirmation that traditional postal services are in terminal
decline.

The letters market is contracting and domestic mail services from Royal Mail
in Britain to TNT in the Netherlands — remain overstaffed and heavily
unionised.

Governments across Europe are slowly grappling with the problem but the market
remains highly fragmented. Royal Mail, for example, is slowly cutting staff,
modernising and moving towards part-privatisation.

But analysts believe that Royal Mail and its European equivalents will
continue to contract until governments drop restrictions on foreign
ownership of domestic mail